Menu
October 15, 2019

Guarding Against The Ground Game

Birthday boy Cordarro Law isn’t preoccupied with blowing out the tiny flames atop the 3 and the 1 on his birthday cake.

Actually, he’d much rather extinguish the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ offensive candles.

The bounty-hunting rush end will be four days north of age 31 when Big Blue and Chris Streveler arrive at McMahon Stadium in pursuit of the West Division-frontrunning Calgary Stampeders.

But an 11th win and the Stamps taking another step towards a sixth regular-season West Division flag over the past seven seasons would be among the best belated b-day presents a fella could receive.

Not that the Bombers, led by Streveler, will gift-wrap it for him.

“One guy,’’ cautions Law of Winnipeg’s QBing replacement to the injured Matt Nichols, out for the season with an injured pitching wing, “ain’t gonna take him down. He’s a big, strong, powerful dude. We’ve gotta be sound as a team and make sure that we’re ganging up on him whenever he tucks the ball away.

“This is a bit of a different beast than we’re used to, definitely. We can’t just pin our ears back and rush this quarterback because Streveler, one read and he’s taking off.

“Then we gotta find a way to slow down (Andrew) Harris, too. He’s playing MOP-type football.

“So between the two of them, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

The 6-foot-1, 211-pound Streveler, a regular hellion whenever he escapes the pocket and begins to thunder downhill, certainly presents a different set of variables than the predominantly drop-back Nichols.

The second-year signal-caller currently ranks sixth in rolling the rock at 641 yards, at an average of 5.7-per-tote. Which doesn’t make him merely a one-dimensional yard-muncher, though, as is shown in the 1,430 passing yards he’s accrued.

Nichols, of course, was the man at the throttle when the Blue Bombers edged Calgary 26-24 in the lone clash between the two sides this season, back on Aug. 8 at Investors Group Field.

“They’ve got enough run game to deal with there in Andrew,’’ sighs Stampeders defensive co-ordinator Brent Monson. “Then you add Streveler to the mix.

“We need to be really sharp with our tackling. He’s a difficult guy to bring down. And they do like to get him out there and run him around.

“We’ve got to keep him in the pocket. He’s made some nice throws, too, made some big plays with his arm. So he can hurt you with more than his running.

“He’s a dangerous quarterback. We’ve got to be on our stuff.”

Lately, the banged-up Stampeder D is becoming well drilled in dealing with rush-activated pivots. Last week they welcomed the CFL’s seventh leading rusher, Roughrider quarterback Cody Fajardo, to town. Fajardo ran for a team-high 67 yards but the locals ran out 30-28 winners, anyway.

“I think we’ll see a couple quarterbacks (Saturday), to be honest,’’ reckons Stampeder boss Dave Dickenson. “I think you’ll see Zach (Collaros) in there a little bit, as well.

“(Streveler) is strong. He can run, he can throw. They do a lot more misdirection and designed quarterback runs than Sask does. Whereas Sask, if the coverage takes it away, (Fajardo) just takes off.

“So there are some similarities, body types and all that, but the systems are different.

“We’ve got to tackle well and hopefully win the line of scrimmage.”

Saturday’s date marks Calgary’s final home game of the 2019 regular campaign and the first of a back-to-back doubleheader versus the Bombers.

“It changes the game quite a bit when you add the dynamic of a running quarterback,’’ echoes linebacker Nate Holley. “Sometimes they’re the hardest types to play against because they can kill you with both their feet and their arm.

“It adds another component to the game but as long as we lock-in, use our eyes and read things the way we need to, it’ll all play out the way we want it to.”